Mumbai: Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh wants Air India to gear up to face the competition posed by the Jet-Etihad alliance but Air India's dominance in India's international market is already under threat due to liberal grant of traffic rights and airline's own limitations including smaller fleet size, and fewer code share and frequent flyer partnerships.
On many key international routes Air India has a single daily flight. Take for instance India-Hong Kong route. Cathay Pacific and its subsidiary Dragon Air have 46 weekly flights from India and Hong Kong. Air India has a seven weekly flights between Delhi-Hong Kong and the same aircraft flies onward to Osaka and Seoul effectively limiting the capacity. Similar is the case with Frankfurt and Paris routes from where Lufthansa and Air France connect various points in India whereas the national carrier flies one daily direct flight from Delhi.
Excluding its low cost arm (AI Express), Air India has 341 weekly departures on foreign routes. This includes 155 flights to all of Gulf region while Emirates alone has 185 flights a week from Dubai to ten cities in India.
01/05/13 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
